Thousands of Syrians were braving cold and rain at the Turkish border Saturday after fleeing a Russian-backed regime offensive on Aleppo that threatens a fresh humanitarian disaster in the country’s second city.
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The border remains closed and it is not clear if any of the refugees would be admitted to Turkey.
The mass exodus comes as government forces launched a new offensive into the city, which is divided between rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad in the east and loyalist troops in the west.
Pro-government troops have recaptured several villages near the Turkish border, sending thousands of residents fleeing towards Turkey.
Syrian government and allied forces pressed their most dramatic advance in months Friday, sending insurgents scrambling and tens of thousands of civilians fleeing toward the border with Turkey.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday it estimated “up to 20,000 people have gathered at the Bab al-Salama border crossing and another 5,000 to 10,000 people have been displaced to Azaz city” nearby.
Aleppo, once Syria’s thriving commercial center, has been carved up between government- and rebel-controlled districts since the summer of 2012.
“This creates risks, heightened tensions and is of course a challenge for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation”, he said.
In Iraq, Ryder said that Sunni tribal fighters who had been held out of previous offensives were now increasingly involved in actions against ISIS defenders.
On Friday, clashes between the two sides in and around Ratyan, a town near Aleppo, cost 120 lives, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The conflict in Syria has killed more than 260,000 people and forced half the country’s people from their homes since March 2011.
An assault by the Syrian army, backed by heavy Russian air power, severed the last rebel supply line from Turkey to Aleppo on Wednesday, in a devastating blow to the Syrian opposition.
Rebels have held substantial ground in the province for a while but have started to relinquish some of that territory as the five-year civil war drags on.
Syrians fleeing the embattled northern city of Aleppo walk toward the frontier post of Bab al-Salameh bordering with Turkey on February 5, 2016.
“I find this Russian statement laughable… rather it is Russia that is now engaged in an invasion of Syria”, Erdogan said, quoted by the state-run Anatolia news agency.
Government forces concentrated in Damascus and the centre and west of Syria are fighting the jihadists of Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, as well as less numerous so-called “moderate” rebel groups, which are strongest in the north and east. These groups are also battling each other.
Turkey’s senior officials said Friday that as many as 70,000 more Syrians were on their way to the border. The Syrian army announced the taking of the town of Attaman in the southern province of Dara’a putting the army closer into securing the contested provincial capital of the border province in Jordan.
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He said the air strikes posed a particular problem for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member Turkey, which is already embroiled in a row with Russia after Turkey shot down a Russian jet it accused of violating its airspace.
